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West Seattle Crime Watch: Bullet hits house

The city’s time-lagged police-report map includes a notation about an incident coded as a “drive-by” early this morning in the 1700 block of SW Trenton (map). Tonight, we have details via e-mail from the person (requesting anonymity) whose home was hit:

At approximately 5:05 this morning (9/21) a single shot was fired from a moving vehicle into my house in the 1700 block of SW Trenton St. The bullet lodged in the front door a few feet away from where I was sitting, looking out the window and visible to the road. I do not have a good description of the vehicle other than it was a car. No one was injured, and the police were called and came to investigate.

There’s no indication of whether it’s related, but that’s just a few blocks from a recent confirmed case of “shots fired” (no one hit), in the 8600 block of 14th SW, as noted in our most recent WSBeat roundup.

Geez, there are so many of these incidents…are they gang-related? Or random? It is one thing when gun shots are “far away”, another when they are on the streets I walk my dog and one block away from the Highland Park Elementary guarded crosswalk at 16th and Trenton.

Why aren’t people making more
noise in WS about this?

It seems like the frequency has increased since school has started again? Initiations and gang boundary games, maybe?

I dunno. I just hope the city’s planned safety “chat” has school district peeps who are involved in the gang-prevention programs there. I bet many don’t realize a gang-related
program began here in WS a couple of years ago. I don’t mean to suggest that WS kids are responsible for any of these shootings. I do mean to suggest the School District gang-prevention WS peeps should represent at the community safety “chat”.

Ugh, scary. We live very near here. I’m worried enough about freak crossfire incidents, like the death in First Hill a few months back, and yet, here even, closer to home, are seemingly randoms shooting AT houses, AT people. I really hope these incidents of “shots fired” are addressed and followed-up on, as well!

We’ve been at three community meetings this week with SPD in attendance – besides the Crime Prevention Council, the precinct’s second-in-command, Ops Lt. Pierre Davis, was at the Delridge Neighborhoods District Council and the Alki Community Council. I again urge everyone to go to your neighborhood council/association’s meetings – if you have one – because if you’re not there to ask, it might not come up. At two of those meetings, what had been the previous “drive-by” – the 26th/Hudson event almost 2 weeks ago in which a car got a bullet to its windshield – and talked about groups of people causing trouble and police working on strategies to deal with them. Don’t know if the Highland Park incidents are at all related but Highland Park’s community council, the HP Action Committee, meets at 7 pm this Wednesday, and police are often in attendance too – if you want to make sure, contact HPAC leadership (should be able to do so through their website http://www.hpic1919.org/hpac )- TR

We live near there and have had problems with people of disrepute hanging out in our alley in various cars, doing drugs, drinking lots of alcohol, throwing bottles, and calling each other all manner of nasty names. We have called the police four times, and they have never come. It is very discouraging. They sit there for hours sometimes, and the police never come. Imagine these folks impaired and then driving through our neighborhood. And the police never come.

There will be more of this kind of crime with all of the new apartments being built in W. Seattle. We need representation on the city council instead of all council members being elected at large. The developers don’t care about us. All they care about is money. The city council as it is doesn’t care either. All they want is to expand the tax base, and so West Seattle fits their goal of increasing the city’s population perfectly!

“There will be more of this kind of crime with all of the new apartments being built in W. Seattle. We need representation on the city council instead of all council members being elected at large. The developers don’t care about us. All they care about is money. The city council as it is doesn’t care either. All they want is to expand the tax base, and so West Seattle fits their goal of increasing the city’s population perfectly!”

Dangerous and sad. SPD does the best job it can but I don’t know why SPD is not responding to Highland Park Resident’s calls. Gangs are out of control in Seattle just like they are out of control in every big, med, sm size cities. The gangs seem to me creeping into every neighborhood. Has leadership failed everywhere? What can be done to halt the gangs with guns, drugs, prostitution rings, dangerous violence against innocent bystanders?

I’m going to tear out my hair the next time someone exclaims “West Seattle is getting dangerous”!

If you’re worried about the state of West Seattle’s being, be proactive. Greet your neighbors if you haven’t already done so. Start attending community meetings. Don’t hesitate to report ANY kind of suspicious activity.

Just, PLEASE, stop saying West Seattle is getting bad. It’s no worse than it was 20 years ago. We’re just lucky enough to live in a time where EVERYTHING gets reported in some fashion, be it Internet, tv, etc.

Thank you, WMF. We’ve been here 21 years and in the first year, while renting on Beach Drive till figuring out how to buy a house, somebody shot out car windows one night, including ours. Two years after that was the violent year of 1993. I don’t think it’s ever been as bad as that year, since then. Of course even ONE crime is one too many. But we report them, when we hear about them, because we believe in the power of information – the power to give you a chance to be more watchful, to know what’s going on, rather than to live head-in-sand. If you’re interested in exploring the big picture, SPD posts stats monthly, with something of a lag (July is the latest month up) – http://www.seattle.gov/police/crime/stats.htm
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And if you don’t have a Block Watch, start one! Here’s how to get help with that: http://www.seattle.gov/police/blockwatch/starting.htm
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If you’d like to talk with people who already run Block Watches, and hear from police, the West Seattle Blockwatch Captains Network resumes its monthly meetings this Tuesday at the SW Precinct – http://wsblockwatchnet.wordpress.com
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TR

I feel we are just as able to chase thugs out of our neighborhoods as the Police are. I’m not saying we should all go Phoenix Jones, but if a couple people from the block collaborate to tell these punks to move along, it won’t go unnoticed.

phil dirt, I’d LOVE it if someone tore down the Highland Park apartment buildings that are falling down anyway and put up something nicer…it’s mostly single family houses down here so I really don’t see how your point applies.
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I’ve lived here since the late 90s and it’s been a decade at least since a SWAT team eager to talk to my neighbors woke me up at 6 am. So there’s that.
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Not that we shouldn’t be proactive as a community in preventing, discouraging, and responding to stuff like this but handwringing doesn’t do much good either.

You don’t me but I gather that comment was a sad attempt at contributing some kind of insight??? You also, evidently, do not understand what long time WSBer’s do about my participation and observations in this community. Your comment is nothing but an insult. I meant within hearing distance, but those who know me know I am not a person who lives with my head in the sand. About anything. And I am also not a person who writes defeated, self-righteous comments online. I act. Proactively and strategically. Relentlessly.

Have I met you at one of a gazillion meetings and events and projects and causes I have organized or founded? Check your self-serving assumptions before you reply. If you already do attend community association and safety and education and parks meetings, like I do, introduce yourself sometime.

I don’t see how you glean all that from my one liner. It certainly isn’t personal as I don’t know you. I also don’t see a distinction in hearing distance. Gunfire is dangerous no matter where it is.
That it’s okay in places other than West Seattle is something I hear a lot. I simply don’t like that attitude. If you meant something else, then okay.